Let's not confuse form with substance. Also this year, due to the well-known problems caused by the world health emergency, in the absence of a dialogue between the participants, the January meeting in Davos of the World Economic Forum-WEF, one of the major world centers of socio-economic research, was held is carried out in the simplified form of Davos Agenda, a review of video contributions to which, among others, some of the most important protagonists of the world political scene have contributed in computer mode, including the Chinese leader Xi Jinping, Ursula von der Leyen for the European Union, and the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

However, we said, even in digital form the form is not equivalent to the substance.

Because the speeches of the participants appeared conciliatory in theory, divergent in practice, and therefore far from achieving shared solutions.

With results that are sometimes as paradoxical as they are difficult to justify.

For example, it is incomprehensible why, taking advantage of the international pandemic, governments do not unite to ban experiments on biological warfare and spare the world population the possibility of new health problems, the current origin of which, it should be remembered, remains still mysterious.

So let's focus on financial issues.

In short: back to basics, let's go back to the origins, to the economic issues that have characterised the WEF for over half a century.

All those present recognized that an economic recovery is essential to resume development projects blocked by the pandemic.

In 2021, the indicators generally confirmed an upward trend, as recalled by Christine Lagarde, who took over from Mario Draghi as president of the European Central Bank.

This is an easy result to foresee, after a 2020 where the world industry has been forced to a forced stop, consequent to a market logic that does not find it cheap to produce goods when consumers do not buy them simply because they cannot leave the house. .

Thanks to the arrival of vaccines, 2022 has opened from a different perspective, with an economic rebound whose point of arrival is difficult to predict.

As in politics, interpretations are not univocal in economics.

Slow down the economy of the factory of the world, China; this increases the voracity of raw materials and energy resources, as well as the export of inflation to those countries that until now had accustomed themselves to considering the country of the Celestial Empire as an unpretentious supplier of cheap goods.

In Europe, inflation has now reached 5%, but by the ECB it is still considered a temporary phenomenon.

This is an interpretation probably dictated by circumstances.

Otherwise the old continent would have to recognize the need to raise interest rates.

But doing so would not only devalue the effectiveness of the recovery plans, the loans granted by Brussels to the economies most affected by the pandemic, but would also weaken the industrial system of our continent just when the latter is called upon to generate value to repay the credits received.

So let's try to interpret what is happening by turning to the United States, where inflation in just ten months of last year jumped from 1.4% to 7%, and interest increases have already been announced.

Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, the American finance minister, thanks also to a policy of public subsidies and climate investments decided by the Biden administration, can close the 2021 budget with an enviable list of upward figures: an increase of almost the 5% of GDP, the economic profitability of the country; creation of over six million new jobs; retreat of the unemployed below the 4% threshold, and economic development forecasts for the current year exceeding 3%.

"At the moment we do not see a recovery in unemployment, business failures and insolvencies, in short, the elements that anticipate the arrival of difficulties".

Furthermore, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill and Build Back Better economic recovery packages should confirm the Biden administration's desire to “favor a sustainable and socially inclusive recovery”, continues Yellen, and therefore not supported by simple increases in balance sheet values.

However, even overseas, the devil is hiding in the details.

Because the positive values ​​now reported are concentrated in logistics, services, large-scale distribution; in short: in the tertiary sector, more than in industry, which instead is the real terrain where value is created and the game of recovery, of global recovery, is won.

Now all that remains is to wait a few weeks to receive updates on the fate of the world's economies.

Because, having finished the video contributions of Davos Agenda, the WEF has updated the proceedings for the next session, finally in presence and no longer virtual, which will take place in the town of Graubünden from next 22 to 26 May.

The image:
Average WEF.
Kalus Schwab, founder of the WEF, during the works.